


Steve Rogers Back-Story Primer

by Franzbibliothek



Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Meta, mostly hoping this helps fic writers, trying to untangle the snarl of comic continuity, what has the MCU used and what has it ignored
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-25 05:50:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6182980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Franzbibliothek/pseuds/Franzbibliothek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Comics are complicated, when it comes to trying to figure out the back-story of a character that has been published for over 70 years this confusion only increases. Over time comics have tried to answer and then re-answer basic questions about Steve Rogers prior to receiving the super-serum, like: who were Steve Rogers' parents? How old is Steve Rogers? Why did Steve Rogers' decide to join the army? I am hoping this can be a guide to those curious to what paths writers of Captain America have already traversed in imagining his past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Intro

Captain America: one of Marvel ’s most prominent heroes and one of the most long published superheroes in general. Yet for all Cap’s continued presence in the public eye, especially in anticipation of Captain America: Civil War, the third film in the Captain America franchise, what can really be said of Steve Rogers the man typically behind the mask? Any attempt to examine the portrayal of Steve Rogers the character and his changes throughout his long publication history with any depth would be the subject of a book, and there are already a good number of essays that touch on this topic. For the purposes of these short collections of essays, I will be sifting through the many retellings of Steve Rogers’ back-story before he was injected with the super-soldier serum. 

Like many golden age heroes, Steve Rogers was not granted an extensive back-story, though I would argue when compared to his contemporaries: Batman, The Shield, or The Angel, (just a sample of the superheroes that Jack Kirby and Joe Simon were drawing on when making their creation) Cap lacks even the flimsiest background given to these heroes. The name Steve Rogers is not even mentioned until after Dr. Reinstein dubs the transformed man, Captain America in Captain America issue #1 (1940). As a result the first comic issue to examine Steve Rogers ’ before the serum is written more than two decades after the character’s creation.

Instead of approaching the topic chronologically, I have decided instead to explore Steve Rogers ’ evolution in a thematic fashion. There are a number of different aspects of Steve Rogers’ back-story that writers have attempted to flesh out over the years; his parents, the nature of his sickliness, his age, his occupation, how he would be inspired to join the army, to name a few. I have observed that there seems to be a general consensus among Captain America fans about Steve Rogers past, and yet examining the actual sources often given by various databases, yields a rather more complicated picture. Cap’s back story far from  being  monolithic or comprehensive, has been put together slowly piece by piece over the decades. The Marvel database writes that Steve Rogers’ was a son of poor Irish immigrants who became inspired to join the army after seeing newsreels, but ends the section with “…little else is known about Rogers' early life other than the fact that a strong sense of duty, honor, and humility was instilled in  him ” yet the source they give for this is a miniseries from the 1991 that in some details contradict earlier more generally accepted comics about Steve Rogers ’ background. 

My purpose here then is to traverse the complicated history of Steve Rogers and what pieces of his biography has lasted for decades, what has been written only to be ignored by later writers, and what do these decisions say about the continuity of Steve Rogers ’ character? 


	2. Joseph and Sarah Rogers

There is relatively little known about Steve Rogers ’ personal life prior to the serum in general, but information regarding his family life has in particular been very scanty. So I hope this short primer will serve as a compilation of what information  _ has _ been given, with some minor commentary, particularly where the comics contradicts themselves on this subject. This is not an exhaustive list of Sarah and Joseph Rogers ’ every appearance in the comics, but rather a contextualized summary of the occurrences that I feel add new information about the characters. One would think that resources like Wikipedia or the Marvel database would already do this, however the relative unimportance of the characters and the confusion of continuity make entries often unhelpful. 

My focus here is on the 616 universe and the MCU. In the Ultimate universe I know Steve Rogers had parents and a brother that were all still alive when he crashed into the arctic. I also believe that Joseph Rogers may have appeared in the Earth X universe, but I do not have the knowledge or interest in Marvel ’s various alternate universes to give any sort of coherent chronological run-down on them. 

What information given about Steve Rogers ’ past prior to the 1970s never mentions his parents. It is not until Captain America issue #225 (1978) that a Steve Rogers who had forgotten his past, agrees to an experiment to regain his memories. He remembers then that he was the son of diplomat Walter Rogers and his wife Elizabeth Rogers, who lived in a large house in Maryland, where Steve was raised with his older brother Mike. As is revealed in Captain America issue #247 (1980) however, all of this was actually fake memories that the government had planted in Steve to resist possible interrogation. From certain hints it appears that this twist was intended all along and Marvel never intended for Steve to be the son of a diplomat. However an entire issue is dedicated to the recalling of these false memories and with them is the revelation of complex family dynamics and more a more nuanced approach to how Steve came to be involved with the war, than anything Captain America really has given us since. Despite all evidence to the contrary, a part of me can not help but wonder whether the author truly intended it to be Steve’s genuine back-story. 

So, it is not until 1981, in Captain America issue #255, that Steve Rogers ’ true back-story is revealed, and his actual parents are first mentioned. Steve’s father is revealed to have died while Steve was a child, but no name is given to him. Steve Rogers’ mother physically appears and is named Sarah Rogers. In this version mother and son lived in Lower East Side Manhattan and Sarah Rogers took laundry in to support them. She would then die while Steve was in his late teens from sickness. This version has become Steve Rogers’ default back-story and all future retellings typically are simply building on it. 

The next mention of Steve ’s father would come two years later, when he is referred to, still unnamed, in Iron Man issue #172 during the famous Demon in a Bottle arc. Steve trying to get through to Tony Stark, who has hit rock bottom fighting his alcoholism, admits that his beloved father was also an alcoholic. 

Joseph Rogers ’ first actual appearance as a named character comes in Captain America issue #283 which came out, not coincidentally I think, the same month as the previously mentioned Iron Man issue. Here Joseph Rogers’ drinking problem is also mentioned as well as the family’s apparent poverty. I was under the impression that the name Joseph was chosen for the name of Steve’s father as an allusion to Joseph “Joe” Simon, one of the creators of Captain America. However, given the fact the character was created primarily to have a drinking problem I am not sure how creditable this is. 

We learn nothing really new about Steve’s parents until a miniseries in 1991 called “The Adventures of Captain America Sentinel of Liberty” where, Steve mentions that his father died in World War I. Later this slight contradiction would be harmonized with the rest of the Captain America comics in Mythos: Captain America issue #1 (2008), where Steve mentions that his father served during World War I (as a Blue Spader, a regiment with a shield insignia and also known for their high casualties during World War I) but survived at least long enough for Steve to have vague memories of his father before he died. Worth noting that Steve specifically mentions his memories of his father were pleasant. 

Now we come to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In the prelude comic Captain America: The First Vengeance (2011), released before the first film _ , _ Joseph Rogers died in World War I, and Sarah Rogers lives with Steve in Hell ’s Kitchen Manhattan, where she dies when he’s a young child. Joseph Rogers dying in World War I is one of a few unique details found in the MCU that is only really shared with “The Adventures of Captain America Sentinel of Liberty” miniseries, which leads me to suspect it was a major source of reference for the script writers. 

In the actual film we learn that Steve ’s father died of mustard gas and that his mother was a nurse who died from TB. Though the fact that she died when Steve was a young child leaving him to grow up in an orphanage is then contradicted in  _ Captain America: Winter Soldier, _ where Steve is clearly an older teen or young adult at the time of his mother ’s funeral. The latter depiction is more in line with the comics. Since both films share a script writer it seems more likely that this was an error on the side of the author of the prelude comic than a continuity error in the films themselves. 

In Rick Remender ’s run of the Captain America comics in 2012, Joseph and Sarah Rogers also appear, but are depicted dramatically different than previous incarnations. Joseph is a physically abusive drunk who beats his wife. This interpretation, from what I gather, has been rather unpopular, relying as it does on the idea that someone with an alcohol problem is necessarily physically abusive. Not to mention there is already something of a surplus of drunk abusive fathers in the Marvel Universe as it stands. 

Since their first appearance in the 1980s very little is still entirely clear about Sarah and Joseph Rogers. They were poor and died relatively young being the most consistent thing about them. Even the fact that they were immigrants is more of an implication than an explicitly stated fact for the great majority of their appearances. My unsurprising conclusion is that these characters are very open to interpretation: Is Joseph Rogers a tragic war hero or a physically abusive drunk, or both? Is Sarah Rogers a domestic service worker or a nurse? All have historical and textual evidence behind them. My personal feeling is that the Marvel Universe could use far more moments of immigrant single-mother during the Depression Sarah Rogers giving young Steve Rogers, Captain America speeches about freedom, justice, and perseverance. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The nature of comics being what it is I probably missed something. Please feel free to mention in the comments, though keep in mind while i realize that there are many appearances I left unmentioned it was mostly because they didn't add any details to the characters that hadn't been given before. 
> 
> And if this helped you at all or you enjoyed it please kudos or comment, feedback is so appreciated since fact-checking and summarizing decades worth of comics is rather time-consuming.

**Author's Note:**

> For the curious I quoted the Marvel Wiki entry for Captain America which I accessed in January 16, 2016, so it might be changed by now. If my work is at all helpful to you or you come across a factual error please comment. Non-fiction writing is pretty intense and feedback will give me the motivation to write more and update more quickly.


End file.
